Chapter 12

MY mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentle-
man. The more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young
gentleman on his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned
countenance, the more certain it appeared that something would
be done to me. I felt that the pale young gentleman's blood was
on my head, and that the Law would avenge it. Without having
any definite idea of the penalties I had incurred, it was clear to me
that village boys could not go stalking about the country, ravaging
the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into the studious youth of
England, without laying themselves open to severe punishment.
For some days, I even kept close at home, and looked out at the
kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before
going on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should
pounce upon me. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained
my trousers, and I tried to wash out that evidence of my guilt in
the dead of night. I had cut my knuckles against the pale young
gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my imagination into a thousand
tangles, as I devised incredible ways of accounting for that
damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before the
Judges.

When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed
of violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons
of Justice, specially sent down from London, would be lying in
ambush behind the gate? Whether Miss Havisham, preferring to
take personal vengeance for an outrage done to her house, might
rise in those grave-clothes of hers, draw a pistol, and shoot me
dead? Whether suborned boys -- a numerous band of mercenaries --
might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, and cuff me until
I was no more? It was high testimony to my confidence in the
spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him
accessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as
the acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of
his visage and an indignant sympathy with the family features.

However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And
behold! nothing came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in
any way, and no pale young gentleman was to be discovered on the
premises. I found the same gate open, and I explored the garden
and even looked in at the windows of the detached house; but, my
view was suddenly stopped by the closed shutters within, and all
was lifeless. Only in the corner where the combat had taken place,
could I detect any evidence of the young gentleman's existence.
There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with
garden-mould from the eye of man.

On the broad landing between Miss Havisham's own room and
that other room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a
garden-chair -- a light chair on wheels, that you pushed from be-
hind. It had been placed there since my last visit, and I entered,
that same day, on a regular occupation of pushing Miss Havisham
in this chair (when she was tired of walking with her hand upon my
shoulder) round her own room, and across the landing, and round
the other room. Over and over and over again, we would make
these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as three
hours at a stretch. I insensibly full into a general mention of
these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I
should return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and
because I am now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten
months.

As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham
talked more to me, and asked me such questions as what had I
learnt and what was I going to be? I told her I was going to be
apprenticed to Joe, I believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing
nothing and wanting to know everything, in the hope that she
might offer some help towards that desirable end. But, she did not;
on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my being ignorant. Neither
did she ever give me any money -- or anything but my daily dinner
-- nor even stipulate that I should be paid for my services.

Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never
told me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly
tolerate me; sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes,
she would be quite familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me
energetically that she hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask
me in a whisper, or when we were alone, `Does she grow prettier
and prettier, Pip?' And when I said yes (for indeed she did),
would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we played at cards
Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of Estella's
moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods
were so many and so contradictory of one another that I was
puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with
lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded
like `Break their hearts my pride and hope, break their hearts and
have no mercy!'

There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of
which the burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious
way of rendering homage to a patron saint; but, I believe Old
Clem stood in that relation towards smiths. It was a song that
imitated the measure of beating upon iron, and was a mere lyrical
excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's respected name. Thus,
you were to hammer boys round -- Old Clem! With a thump and
a sound -- Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out -- Old Clem! With a
clink for the stout -- Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire -- Old
Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher -- Old Clem! One day soon
after the appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying
to me with the impatient movement of her fingers, `There, there,
there! Sing!' I was surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed
her over the floor. It happened so to catch her fancy, that she took
it up in a low brooding voice as if she were singing in her aleep.
After that, it became customary with us to have it as we moved
about, and Estella would often join in; though the whole strain
was so subdued, even when there were three of us, that it made less
noise in the grim old house than the lightest breath of wind.

What could I become with these surroundings? How could my
character fail to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if
my thoughts were dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into
the natural light from the misty ye llow rooms?

Perhaps, I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if
I had not previously been betrayed into those enormous inven-
tions to which I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt
that Joe could hardly fuil to discern in the pale young gentleman,
an appropriate passenger to be put into the black velvet coach;
therefore, I said nothing of him. Besides: that shrinking from
having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, which had come
upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time went
on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but, I
told poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so,
and why Biddy had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did
not know then, though I think I know now.

Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught
with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit.
That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for
the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and I
really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to
feel), that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his
chaise-cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a
man of that confined stolidity of mind, that he could not discuss
my prospects without having me before him -- as it were, to
operate upon -- and he would drag me up from my stool (usually
by the collar) where I w as quiet in a comer, and, putting me before
the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying,
`Now, Mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought
up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be for ever grateful
unto them which so did do. Now, Mum, with respections to this
boy!' And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way -- which
from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul
denied the right of any fellow-creature to do -- and would hold me
before him by the sleeve: a spectacle of imbecility only to be
equalled by himself.

Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical
speculations about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do
with me and for me, that I used to want -- quite painfully -- to burst
into spiteful tears, fly at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over.
In these dialogues, my sister spoke to me as if she were morally
wrenching one of my teeth out at every reference; while Pumble-
chook himself, self-constituted my patron, would sit supervising
me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of my fortunes who
thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job.

In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at,
while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs Joe's perceiving that
he was not favourable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully
old enough now, to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with
the poker on his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between
the lower bars, my sister would so distinctly construe that innocent
action into opposition on his part, that she would dive at him, take
the poker out of his hands, shake him, and put it away. There was
a most irritating end to every one of these debates. All in a moment,
with nothing to lead up to it, my sister would stop herself in a
yawn, and catching sight of me as it were incidentally, would
swoop upon me with, `Come! there's enough of you! You get
along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I hopel'
As if I had besought them as a favour to bother my life out.

We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that
we should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when, one
day, Miss Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she
leaning on my shoulder; and said with some displeasure:

`You are growing tall, Pip!'

I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative
look, that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which
I had no control.

She said no more at the time; but, she presently stopped and
looked at me again; and presently again; and after that, looked
frowning and moody. On the next day of my attendance when our
usual exercise was over, and I had landed her at her dressing-
table, she stayed me with a movement of her impatient fingers:

`Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.'

`Joe Gargery, ma'am.'

`Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?'

`Yes, Miss Havisham.'

`You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come
here with you, and bring your indentures, do you think?'

I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honour to
be asked.

`Then let him come.'

`At any particular time, Miss Havisham?'

`There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon,
and come alone with you.'

When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe,
my sister `went on the Rampage,' in a more alarming degree than
at any previous period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed
she was door-mats under our feet, and how we dared to use her so,
and what company we graciously thought she was fit for? When
she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candle-
stick at Joe, burst into a I oud sobbing, got out the dustpan -- which
was always a very bad sign -- put on her coarse apron, and began
cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry cleaning,
she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned us out of house
and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard. It was ten
o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and then she
asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once? Joe
offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and
looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been
a better speculation.